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Monday, December 9, 2013

Vatican
City, 8 December 2013 (VIS) – On the day of the Immaculate
Conception, the Pope appeared at the window of his study to pray the
Angelus with the thousands of people gathered in St. Peter's Square,
and asked all to join him in invoking Mary, repeating “Full of
grace”, as God saw her in His loving plan: “beautiful and full of
grace”.

“Our
mother is beautiful!” he continued. “Mary guides us as we journey
towards the Nativity, because she teaches us how to experience the
time of Advent, awaiting the Lord … Who will come to us all
together in the feast, but also to each one of us, in our hearts”.

He
went on to comment on the reading from the Gospel of St. Luke, which
presents Mary, a girl from Galilee, a small village at the outskirts
of the Roman Empire and remote even within Israel. However, although
she was “a young girl from a faraway village”, “the gaze of the
Lord” rested upon her, “and He chose her as the mother of His
Son. In the light of her maternity, Mary was preserved from original
sin, from that fracture in the communion with God, with others and
with creation, which deeply wounds every human being. But this
fracture was healed in advance in the mother of He Who came to free
us from the slavery of sin. The Immaculate Conception is inscribed in
God's design; it is the fruit of God's love, which saves the world”.

“And
the Virgin never strayed from that love; all her life, all her being
is a 'yes' to that love, and a 'yes' to God. But it certainly was not
easy for her! When the Angel describes her as the 'favoured one', she
is 'greatly troubled' since, in her humility, she considers herself
as nothing before God”, but she “listens, obeys within herself,
and answers, 'I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according
to your word'”.

“The
mystery of this girl from Nazareth, who is in God's heart, is not
alien to us”, emphasised the Bishop of Rome. “It is not that she
is there and we are here. No, we are connected. Indeed, God turns His
loving gaze upon every man and every woman. With both name and
surname. His loving gaze falls upon every one of us. The apostle Paul
affirms that God 'chose us in him before the creation of the world to
be holy and blameless in his sight'. We too have always been chosen
by God to lead a holy life, free of sin”.

“On
this feast day”, concluded Pope Francis, “contemplating our
Immaculate and beautiful Mother, we also recognise our truest
destiny, our deepest vocation: to be loved, to be transformed by
love, to be transformed by the beauty of God”.

Following
the Marian prayer, the Pope greeted the Church in North America,
which today celebrates the foundation of her first parish, Notre-Dame
de Quebec, 350 years ago. “We give thanks for her journey so far,
especially for the saints and martyrs who have made those lands
fruitful. I give my heartfelt blessing to all the faithful who
celebrate this jubilee”.